


From The Top Of My Heart

by th_esaurus



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: M/M, POV Second Person, Post-Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-23 02:25:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18145586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/th_esaurus/pseuds/th_esaurus
Summary: Your favourite part of kissing Riku was the hovering moment before your lips actually touched. You’d always been an impatient boy, you knew from your mother’s wistful whinging, but you liked that Riku always seemed to have a split-second of unsure shyness before he kissed you, a shared, shaky breath; a hesitance that you let him work through and overcome.And then—No, no way, your favourite part of kissing Riku waskissing Riku.





	From The Top Of My Heart

You spent the afternoon, as you often did in downtime, indulgently nostalgic; with your chest nestling in the fine, blazing sand and the sun idly warming your bare back. You dug your toes right down into the sand, buried up to the heel, conscious of every grain that shifted under them along with your deep, contented breaths. Aware of but unbothered by the dozily drifting voices of kids from around the curve of the shoreline, shouting and laughter as they played at war.

The sun shone in every world, of course, but it never seemed to nourish you as much as it did at home. A recharge. You’d suffer for it later, gulping down water and complaining about the itch of your shirt against your overripe shoulders; but you could barely comprehend that now. You were simply warm all over.

It made you think of Riku, and you wiggled your whole body against the sand happily. It made you think of Riku’s skin against yours.

You had always been close, obviously, but now—

You hadn’t named it. But whatever it was between you and Riku now, it felt as familiar as the sunshine. Something that you had basked in for a long, long time.

Abruptly, you wanted to be with him. Not to go anywhere together or do anything specific, but just to soak up his presence. You flung your feet out of the sand and brushed them clean-ish, slapped your tank top over your shoulder, rustled your hair. You hadn’t brought anything much out with you - your flip-flops and an apple you’d chomped down to the core even before you reached the shoreline - and it was nice to feel unencumbered as you clambered along to where the beach became pebbles, then streets.

Your sandals clip-clopped against the stone like a drum-beat.

You felt unfathomably bright. Clouds were creeping in just beyond the farthest archipelago, but right now, it was impossible for shadows to linger in the high noon sun.

-

You could’ve climbed the drainpipe up to Riku’s window. You probably could’ve jumped it from here, you thought proudly. But his window was closed and you figured you should be polite about it.

You knocked, then suddenly shy of who might answer, quickly pulled on your shirt. Tucked it haphazardly into your waistband.

Riku’s mom always seemed real tired these days. Never too tired to smile, but in her eyes, maybe. She was easier with her affection now than when you were young, and loved to feed you whenever you were around these days, but there were questions she never asked: about your travels, Riku’s mellowness, why he sometimes had nightmares that jolted him awake before dawn—

“He’s upstairs,” she told you, giving you two glasses of lemonade to take up. She smiled, only with her mouth.

You bounded the stairs two at a time. With a little pulse of magic, you cleared the top three in one leap. You’d tried once before, when you were very young, dared by Riku to leap-frog up onto the landing, and you’d only ended up bashing your knees on the bare wood of the top step. You bit down your bawling, even though it hurt, because Riku found cotton wool and antiseptic and dabbed at your sore knees, patching them up with plain little bandaids.

He’d always taken care of you.

You took care of each other, now.

He was reading in bed, on top of the sheets. A boring-looking hardback thing loaned from Master Yen Sid. You know he’d noticed you out the corner of his eye, because his lips quirked up, but he stayed aloof, his eyes on the page, like you were no bother. You played along, carefully putting the glasses down on his dresser, as quiet as you could, then snuck, thief-like, across the rug he’d had since he was a toddler, freezing up at every floorboard creak.

He was close to laughter now, and tucked his book under his pillow, his hands crossed atop his chest.

“Sora, you’re an idiot.”

“You ruined your own surprise!” you whined, grinning, and couldn’t decide whether to jump, childish, onto the bed, bouncing him out of his calm reprieve; or clamber straight into his arms.

Inside, you already missed the sun. Riku was a fair swap for it.

“Come here,” he murmured.

So you came. Shoved him over playfully to make room for you and then spooned immediately into his warm chest, under the weight of his arm, your bare shins slip-sliding between his legs until you were comfortably entangled.

“Cosy?” he asked, dry.

You hummed a happy assent, and then, changing your mind, realised that you wanted to see his face. You folded your arms over his chest, and propped your chin against your knuckles.

“Whatcha been doing?”

Riku blinked. “Training,” he said, in a matter of fact way that made you feel bad for slacking off. Riku’s house had a big enough yard to spar in, though it was unkempt now: he’d always looked after it in the old days, kept the grass neatly trimmed often enough that you went home from weekly bouts with luminous green stains on your shorts. If you peered up through his bedroom window, you could just about see where he’d tramped a flat circle in the reedy, overgrown grass to practice his swordsmanship.

He nudged his chin at you: _and you?_

“Sunbathing,” you admitted.

“Give me some, then,” he said, and before you could voice your confusion, he wrestled you properly on top of him, chest to chest, hip to hip. Riku could take the weight of your whole body without complaining and as soon as you were settled, he buried his face in your neck and inhaled deeply, his hands wandering at once. He tugged the back of your tee until it slipped from under your belt and slid his hands up under the cotton, cool on your back like water on hot coals. You hissed, not hurt but because it felt good. They kept moving, over the valley of your tight shoulder-blades, the notches of your spine, that sensitive, shivery part of your hips where your puppy fat had never fully dissolved.

You wished you could wriggle deeper into Riku’s skin, just like you could in the soft sand. It was something you often felt around Riku, that desire to burrow into him, and it frustrated you that you couldn’t fathom how to sate it.

“Hold still,” he murmured, amused. You hadn’t realised you were twitching under his ticklish fingers. So you braced your arms either side of his head and tried to hold your body stiff, serious; jerking frantically when he dug his fingers right under your ribs where he knew it’d make you weak.

“Cheat!” you huffed.

“Yes,” he muttered, smiling. And then he put his nose right into your neck, and you clenched for a second, thinking he was looking for another tender spot; but he just stayed there, breathing deeply against your skin.

His earnestness always made you embarrassed. “What do I smell of?” you asked dumbly.

“Orange rind,” he said at once.

“Huh?”

“Sun-ripened.” As if that clarified anything. “But you taste of salt,” Riku said, and then licked all the way up your neck, right up under your chin. It was a little bit funny, and a little bit sexy. You weren’t brave enough to ask if that’s how you tasted all over. So instead you presented him with different parts of your face to kiss: the jut of your chin as you pushed your jaw out, your earlobe, the bridge of your nose - burnt, too, on the walk to Riku’s place from the beach - and then, feeling a lurching giddiness in your stomach, you hovered just about him and opened your mouth and stuck out your tongue.

He blinked, surprised for a second, and then leant up slowly and touched his tongue to yours. It was softer than the sand; wetter than the sea.

“Kiss me,” you mumbled suddenly.

“I am kissing you.”

“ _Properly_ ,” you complained.

Your favourite part of kissing Riku was the hovering moment before your lips actually touched. You’d always been an impatient boy, you knew from your mother’s wistful whinging, but you liked that Riku always seemed to have a split-second of unsure shyness before he kissed you, a shared, shaky breath; a hesitance that you let him work through and overcome.

And then—

No, no way, your favourite part of kissing Riku was _kissing Riku_.

You knew you always made these little shivery noises against his wet mouth. You couldn’t help it. You couldn’t help smiling either, even if it made you harder to kiss, because you always smiled when you were happy, and you were _happy_ with Riku, beyond measure. He pulled back and jokingly put his thumbs at the corner of your mouth to turn your lips downwards, and you smacked him away, laughing; just one thumb, then, against your bottom lip, gently coaxing your mouth open wider.

You moaned against his tongue in a way that made him grip your waist, his arms tight around your warm back, and then pull back again, for real, for breath; to save you both from drowning.

“Better?” he asked, panting.

“I guess it’ll do,” you said, just as breathless.

-

You must’ve dozed in his arms. The gentle _pap pap pap_ of the burgeoning rain falling against his window roused you.

Riku had shifted down the bed a little way, his hands cupped against the small of your back, his head tucked under your chin. Slowly, sleepily, you ran your fingers through his hair. You felt blotchy and flushed, from your cheeks down to your stomach, but Riku was too close to your body to even notice. His ear was pressed against your chest, through your thin tee, and he seemed suddenly serious and attentive.

“What’re you doing?” you asked, hushed.

“Listening.”

“To what?”

The obvious answer was that he was listening to your heartbeat, but it took him so long to reply that you wondered if maybe he wouldn’t answer at all. He used to clam up like that, stoic silence in answer to a simple question, though he hadn’t done it purely to annoy you in a long while. Now his silence was thoughtful, careful.

“—You only have one heartbeat, Sora,” he said eventually. You could feel him frown against your skin, like that wasn’t quite what he wanted to say.

You wanted to needle him for a better answer. But you bit your tongue. Stroked his soft hair, coaxing.

“Do you ever—hear them?”

“Huh?” You felt instantly dumb. You didn’t want Riku to regret his honesty.

Riku edged back from you, but only a little way. He slowly crept his hand under your tee to rest his hand over your heart.

“The others. Inside you.”

“Oh.”

It wasn’t that you forgot. Only that when you were with Riku, you didn’t think about much else. “I guess? Not clearly. Sometimes when I’m in that drowsy bit between sleeping and waking? But it’s just sounds, not really voices.”

Your fingers hit a snag in Riku’s hair and you tugged, unthinking, to break through it. He grabbed your wrist in his free hand, wincing but not chastising you, and brought it to his mouth, kissing your palm.

“I’m jealous,” he muttered, low.

You grabbed his cheeks, pinching them: your idiot reaction to the shock of it. “What?!”

He blushed, a vivid pink across the bridge of his nose. “You don’t think it’s—intimate? Them being there?”

“No!” You pinched his cheeks again for good measure, then poked them with your index fingers, out of sorts. “No, I don’t think about it like that!”

Riku just shrugged. “I guess I think about it sometimes.”

He said it like he thought about it a lot.

You were at a loss. You’d become so much better at reading Riku over the years, at traversing the maze of his thoughts to find the feeling at the centre; but he still led you to dead ends sometimes. “Please don’t be jealous,” you begged quietly. “I mean it’s not like they have it better than you, right?”

Riku looked at you seriously, his gaze low-lidded and unblinking. “If I could live inside your heart, I’d do it. Of course I’d do it.”

“No--”! The cry was ugly and unexpected, pulled out of your throat. “No, don’t wish for that! They’re not even whole people, just halves, just hearts--” It was the cruellest thing you’d ever said about them, and you felt the instant sting of guilt, but barrelled on heedless. “I need you _whole_ , Riku. I need to see you, and touch you, and hear you, and—and—”

You were too emotional to say it, so you kissed him messily. You had just about started to cry, and you could taste the strange salt of your tears between your mouths.

“Sora,” he murmured. You’d always craved the sound of your name in his voice. His validation, his attention; his affection. “I didn’t know you could be selfish.” It wasn’t even an accusation, just a statement of fact. You guessed you’d surprised him.

“Only with you,” you huffed, worn down from the outburst already.

You slumped against his chest, and let his arms come around you, thick but gentle. The rain was falling in earnest outside now, a constant muffled shushing sound. You wanted to run to the beach all of a sudden, drag Riku along, and for both of you to press your bodies into the wet sand, etching your shapes there as if to say, _we’re here! Here we are!_

“Let’s go to the beach,” you mumbled into his neck.

“It’s raining.”

“I know,” you said miserably. It was Riku’s turn to stroke your hair now; still finding grains of sand and rolling them slowly between his finger and thumb. “If—” you started, then stopped. You wanted him to know how unhappy you were about it. “If you _really_ wanted to be inside my heart, I’d let you. If you absolutely _had_ to.”

You tensed, waiting for his reply, but Riku only let out a low laugh. Not unlike his old bitter one, but without quite as much edge.

“Nah,” he said, breezy. “It’s like you said. If I were in there, I guess I’d be safe, but I wouldn’t be able to touch you, or hear your dumb voice.”

“Is it dumb?”

“No,” Riku said, apologetic. His fingers scratched gently against your scalp, in a way that made you feel loose and all-over tingly. “No, you just know I get mean about you when I’m—”

“When you’re feeling too much?”

“Yeah. Sometimes.”

“I get it,” you whispered.

You were quiet enough that you could hear your heartbeat. Riku’s too. Both of them together, the same pulse, the same rhythm, though Riku’s was one step ahead of you.

“Besides,” he said, suddenly impudent, “it’s getting crowded in there, right?”

“You bet,” you snorted. Then: “Are you still too mad to kiss me?”

“I’m not mad at you,” Riku said, very gently.

“Then kiss me?”

“If I kiss you, is it like I’m kissing them, too?”

“ _No_ ,” you barked, petulant. “You’re only kissing _me_.”

Riku laughed, and the sound of his laughter was louder than the rain outside. “Okay, I got it,” he said, his voice ever so warm.

All of him was so warm; sun-like.

You’d bask in his glow for as long as you could.


End file.
